Report: mobile clinics on the outskirts of Jaipur

In Jaipur, India, two mobile clinics, one of which is dedicated exclusively to young girls, criss-cross the slums to facilitate access to healthcare for the most vulnerable children.

The wasteland is lost dozens of kilometers from the city center, at the end of a bumpy road. Fragile tents stand between sparse groves on this arid Rajasthani land. Here, on the outskirts of the city of Jaipur, live around a hundred families from the Banjara community. Far from everything, abandoned in the dust.

Skin infections

A noise suddenly attracts their attention. A familiar sight awakens the torpor of the inhabitants. The children are the first to emerge from the tents and rush to line up. The yellow medical truck of the Taabar association (“child” in the Marwari language), the local partner of La Chaîne de l’Espoir, sets up on this esplanade to offer essential care to children.

Nurse Rajesh Soni, dressed in his white coat, gets out of the truck and starts examining the children. Many suffer from skin infections, like six-year-old Sanju, who wears a bandana on his head to cover an infected wound on his shaved head. “This kind of infection is very common here, as they sleep in the open air and have no running water to wash themselves,” explains Rajesh Soni. The nearest water point is a thirty-minute walk from this wasteland. One by one, the children climb into the truck, which has been converted into a small mobile hospital and divided into three rooms: one for medical consultations, one for psycho-social support and one for the pharmacy. Sanju leaves with a three-month course of treatment, based on a cream and antibiotics. These infections are taken very seriously, as they can quickly worsen.

From consultation to operation

That’s what happened to Raghuveer. Four years ago, this 14-year-old boy with hazel eyes and rebellious hair had a boil on his hip. His parents, like all those in this informal village, had neither the means nor the identity papers to have him treated by a doctor. So they took him to see a tradipratician (a traditional “healer”). The healer put so much pressure on his leg, apparently to force out the pus, that it fractured the boy’s hip.

For months, nurse Rajesh Soni has been working hard to restore Raghuveer’s vitality, and today he walks by leaning on a tin stick: “First we treated his boil. Then we took him regularly to the public hospital, which is 20 kilometers away, to do all the tests in preparation for an operation,” he explains, pointing to the thick medical file that had been compiled. The teenager is suffering less and is being taken care of: the association has applied for an identity card and will finance his operation, which should take place in the next few months.

Breaking the menstrual taboo

This mobile clinic has been visiting Jaipur’s isolated districts since 2009. Thanks to the support of La Chaîne de l’Espoir, the association has purchased a new medical truck in 2021. The mission: to inform and raise awareness among young girls about the taboos surrounding menstrual periods.

And the first step is to break the ice. In the modest Jhalana district of central Jaipur, social worker Shaïna Parveen has gathered around forty teenage girls under a tree. Sitting with them on the ground and in a circle on a large colored sheet, she engages in a light-hearted discussion, asking the girls to show and name the different parts of their bodies, then to draw them, gradually revealing breasts and genitals. Shaïna then begins to dismantle the prejudices about menstruation that are still widespread in Indian families: “Menstruation is not an illness,” she explains. “We shouldn’t be afraid of them, but we should use sanitary towels and change them every six hours at most,” she continues. In India, many women continue to use cotton fabrics. “Calmly welcome this moment, you’re becoming women,” she says cheerfully. “And all of you say: ‘Hello period!'”, which the reassured teenage girls repeat in chorus.

Gynaecological consultations

The ground was thus ripe for talking about more personal issues. So the forty or so teenagers head for the gleaming yellow truck with La Chaîne de l’Espoir logos, parked at the entrance to the neighborhood. A gynecologist, a counselor and a pharmacist receive them in an intimate setting in three air-conditioned, welcoming spaces, with their pretty pink curtains on the windows.

Saloni, aged 13, emerges with a light air. “I had my first period three months ago, I was petrified, and my mother didn’t give me any information about what was happening to me. She simply told me to use cloths to protect myself and not to enter the kitchen”, a very common prohibition in India for menstruating women. “Now I’ve got the answers I need, and I’ll be able to shut up the boys who make fun of me, by telling them: your mother and sister have their periods too!” says Saloni, invigorated. These lessons are a weapon for teenage girls: many young Indian girls no longer go to school during their periods, because of shame or untreated pain. “This program helps to prevent girls from dropping out of school”, insists Ramesh Paliwal, Taabar’s General Secretary.

Freeing speech and the body

And it’s a liberation too, as they regain possession of their bodies: they start playing again, even during their periods, when everyone tells them to stay put. “When I had white discharge, no one explained what it was, and I was just told to stay at home,” explains 15-year-old Aachal. “And when I had pains, my mother told me to go to the pharmacy, but it was run by a man, so I didn’t dare. Here, there are only women, so we feel much more at ease!”

After four hours in the neighborhood, and thanks to this outreach work, these teenagers are no longer ashamed to talk about their periods. They even have a suggestion: “We should organize the same information sessions for our mothers,” says Kiran. “They really need it!